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BUILDING ON STRENGTH IN THE INNER CITY
The following is an excerpt from an interview with Jeanette Ruffins, Executive Director of Genesis Homes, which provides low-income housing in New York City and other cities. Heartbeat's Urban Initiatives courses, taught by Wayne Reed and Darryl Heller, were piloted through Genesis in New York City. If you would like to read the complete interview in PDF format (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, click on Full Text of Interview.
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Dr. Wayne Reed, an educator in Brooklyn, New York, who specializes in educational issues of homeless or chronically unemployed adults. |
What is the neighborhood like around Genesis?
JR: Genesis Homes is in a part of East New York that meets everybody's criteria as an under-served, low-income neighborhood. . . 50 percent of the families are still below the poverty line. And sometimes, especially near the city housing projects, it feels like 90 percent are living in poverty.
Because of welfare reform, and the push for everyone to go back to work, there's a big need for marketable skills and local places to work. It is very difficult for family members, especially mothers, to enter the workforce. Welfare reform expects people who have sometimes never worked before to go to work, but it doesn't take into consideration that they often lack the job skills. And people who have never worked lack what we call "soft skills" for surviving in the workplace.
Please explain "soft skills."
JR: Soft skills are interpersonal skills, skills required to interact with different people. For example, people here have been known to quit jobs because a boss has given them an instruction. They quit, saying, "Nobody is going to tell me what to do." Well, that's what bosses do. Teaching soft skills helps residents to understand this.
What needs in the neighborhood are being met by Heartbeat programs?
JR: Heartbeat's computer course addresses the need for computer and technology training that is so great here and across the country. Many residents need this type of training, and the number of courses available isn't enough to meet the need.
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Darryl Heller, a community organizer and educator in Brooklyn, New York, who has specialized in computer skills and life-skills training in urban poor communities. |
What is so wonderful about Heartbeat's computer course (and their other courses, too) is that they train the trainer. Not everyone will have the aptitude for learning computers, but the course is designed to identify those with computer ability and to teach them how to teach others.
So our computer course is unique in that it trains the trainer?
JR: Yes, but all the Heartbeat curriculums are unique in that they are all encompassing. They're not about teaching just the hard skills; they're about developing soft skills, too.
Also, the courses help reduce isolation, which is a big problem. The courses are structured to force the participants into interaction with each other. This is something many have not had an opportunity to do.
Also, teamwork is stressed. . . The PACE course, which is very successful, doesn't seem like a class. It quickly becomes a group. This creates relationships, which is something that is needed desperately. People need someone to talk to, and many of the students still get together after the course is over.
One of the strongest parts of PACE, and all the courses, is that they identify and train leaders. They identify people with leadership ability and help them to see themselves as leaders. Leadership training is critical. There are a lot of natural leaders here. You see them in tenant and block association meetings.
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